ISBN 9780553213621

ISBN-10

0553213628

Binding

Paperback

Number of Pages

752 Pages

Language

(English)

Subject

General & world history

These four landmark novels of nineteenth-century American literature have gained a permanent place in our culture as great classics. They are not only part of our national heritage, but masterpieces of world literature whose deep and lasting influence is felt to this day.
The Scarlet Letter vividly records America?s moral and historical roots in Puritan New England and masterfully re-creates a society?s preoccupation with sin, guilt, and pride.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn carries readers along on Huck?s unforgettable journey down the Mississippi in America?s foremost comic epic?the first great novel in a truly American voice.
The Red Badge of Courage re-creates the brutal reality of war and its psychological impact on a young Civil War soldier in one of the most moving and widely read American novels.
Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories joins the world?s great tragic literature as a doomed seaman becomes the innocent victim of a clash between social authority and individual freedom.
About The Author
Herman Melville was born in New York City in 1819. When his father died, he was forced to leave school and find work. After passing through some minor clerical jobs, the eighteen-year-old young man shipped out to sea, first on a short cargo trip, then, at twenty-one, on a three-year South Sea whaling venture. From the experiences accumulated on this voyage would come the material for his early books, Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847), as well as for such masterpieces as Moby-Dick (1851), Pierre (1852), The Piazza Tales (1856) and Billy Budd, Sailor, and Other Stories (posthumous, 1924).